Adair walked, and walked, and walked.
His legs moved like dead weight, dragging through moss and fallen leaves. Blood loss had dulled everything. The sharpness in his vision was gone, replaced by a slow blur and a pounding in his ears that came and went with every step.
Each time he blinked, his body threatened to stop. But he kept moving.
The trees thinned as the slope rose. The ground tilted up into a low ridge. Then another. He climbed them without thinking, his hand trailing along bark and rock just to keep upright.
Fog hung low. Thicker now.
Hours passed, or maybe more. Time had stopped meaning anything. His shirt was stiff with dried blood. His fingers were scraped from catching himself on roots.
But the warmth in his chest never left.
It pulsed steady and deep, like a second heartbeat.
The crystal core was still in his pack, wrapped in a torn piece of his shirt. He could feel it even without looking. It called to him with a rhythm that matched his own breath. Each time he thought about stopping, it pulled at him again.
Just pressure. Like it wanted to be somewhere.
His feet finally forced him to stop at a stone wall. A low cliffside rose from the forest floor, blanketed in moss and vine. The mountain stretched above it, jagged and gray.
Adair leaned both hands against the cold rock to hold himself upright. His shoulders slumped. He breathed hard and slow, struggling to stay standing. The last of his strength was slipping fast.
He reached back and pulled the core from his pack. His fingers trembled as he held it. The crystal looked the same as before. Bright, pulsing, alive.
He didn't know why he did it. But almost as if he knew the outcome of his next actions, he pressed the core to the wall.
A bright red light flared.
The crystal glowed brighter and floated from his hand. It hovered just above the stone, spinning gently in place.
Then the rock in front of him shifted just the slightest bit, Adair almost thought he had imagined it.
Until cracks began to spread in all directions. Thin lines split through moss and vine like a living web. Stone pushed inward, folding and warping like clay until a tunnel opened in the mountainside.
Adair stared in disbelief.
The core drifted into the tunnel ahead of him. The walls glowed faintly where it passed. Dust fell from above.
He crawled in after it, forcing his body to continue on despite his condition.
The tunnel was small, barely wider than his shoulders. But it was dry and there weren't any branches to step over or any strange sounds, so he decided it was better than the woods and continued. It went deeper than he thought it would.
He kept crawling, following the light of the core.
After several feet, the passage widened. The floor dropped out into a small chamber it was round, hollow, and unfinished. The core floated to the center of the chamber and stopped, pulsing with a steady red glow.
The room wasn't large or impressive but deep inside he could feel it was his, and for the first time since he arrived in this unforgiving world he felt.. safe.
Adair collapsed just past the threshold.
The air inside felt different. Still and clean.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. His hands fell to his sides. The shaking in his arms slowed.
For the first time since waking in the forest, he let himself breathe without fear.
The core spun gently in the air above him, giving off a quiet light.
Adair closed his eyes. The pressure in his chest still throbbed, but it no longer hurt. His body felt like it had done too much, too fast. But it was still working. His blood had stopped leaking. The wound had vanished like it was never there.
Everything felt too big to understand. But the cave was quiet. The silence gave him space to think.
He sat up slowly and rested his back against the wall.
His thoughts came in slow pieces.
The guards had left him to die. They had seen something in him they didn't understand, and they chose to treat it like a threat. He began to feel intense regret in not trying to fight his way out of that situation also feeling shame in the cowardly approach he took.
He looked at his hands. They were scraped and dirty, covered in dried blood.
He had felt like prey since arriving in this place, having been attacked upon arrival and running away since.
Now, with the dungeon core glowing in front of him, that had changed.
He had something that belonged to him and him alone, a home.
He didn't know what a dungeon really was. Not yet. But the word had come to him like memory. A place. A system. A living space that changed and grew. A core at the center, and a creator behind it.
That creator was him.
The idea felt unreal. But the light in front of him told the truth.
This had formed because of him.
The moment he had pierced himself with the stake, the core had awakened. The dungeon had answered.
Adair rubbed his arms slowly.
The hunger was still there. Dormant, but waiting. He hadn't felt anything like it before. It wasn't tied to food or thirst. It came from the same place as the core. Deep and strange and growing.
He didn't know what it would mean tomorrow, or the day after that.
But he knew what it meant right now.
He was changing.
And this world was not going to wait for him to catch up.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at the core.
He could see faint lines branching out from it, curling into the stone around the chamber. Like roots searching for something to hold onto.
It was already expanding.
Even without him commanding it.
He wondered how much of the dungeon's growth would be instinct. How much would be up to him.
Would it form rooms on its own? Fill them with creatures? Did it need energy to grow? Would he have to feed it somehow?
Was it truly alive, or only a reflection of him?
Adair's head lowered. He felt the weight of everything at once. The questions. The exhaustion. The fact that he had no map, no guide, and no one to ask.
Still, the core pulsed.
And he was still breathing.
The silence around him felt less like emptiness now and more like a promise.
Adair leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees. The core hovered in front of him, glowing steady and bright.
He cleared his throat.
"…Can you hear me?"
The crystal didn't move.
He spoke louder.
"Are you aware of me?"
No answer.
He pushed himself up onto one knee. "I don't know what you are," he said. "You came from me. You opened this place. I think we're connected."
Still nothing.
The glow remained unchanged. Calm. Cold.
Adair stood. His legs still ached, but the pain was a background hum now. His voice grew sharper.
"You opened a door. You built this space. That means you can do more. You can grow."
Silence.
He stepped closer. His hand hovered near the floating core.
"I didn't ask to be dropped here. I didn't ask for a crystal inside my chest or for guards to leave me bleeding in the dirt."
His jaw tightened, tears welled in his eyes.
"I am alone. I don't even know what world this is."
He clenched his fists.
"I have no people. No allies. I don't know if there are monsters outside or if I'll starve in here tomorrow. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do."
The pulse of the crystal shifted.
Just slightly.
Adair took a step back.
"Whatever, I don't know what I expected anyways." he mumbled before sitting back down and burying his head in his hands defeated.
The light inside the core deepened. Threads of energy stretched into the floor. Stone cracked and pulled apart. Dirt churned, rising up in front of Adair in slow pieces.
He raised his head in confusion as a shape formed from the earth.
First legs. Then arms. Then a round head with sharp ears and a crooked jaw. Its skin hardened from damp mud to dull green flesh. A hunched body. A large nose. Small red eyes.
The creature blinked once. Then twice.
It wobbled forward and grunted.
Adair stared unable to understand what had just happened or what this thing was.
It was ugly. Misshapen. Drooling.
It looked like it had barely survived being born. One of its eyes pointed off-center. Its ears were too large. It stood with its knees bent like it had never learned how to straighten them.
Adair blinked, then laughed.
A real laugh. Loud and sudden.
The goblin tilted its head.
"You are the ugliest thing I've ever seen," Adair said, smiling. He stepped forward and crouched in front of the creature. "Can you understand me?"
The goblin opened its mouth and let out a long gurgle. Its tongue flopped sideways.
Adair nodded affectionately.
"Alright. So no language yet."
The goblin sniffed the air. Then sniffed Adair. Then licked a rock and fell over sideways.
Adair watched as it rolled twice and stood back up with a grunt.
Adair fell backwards laughing, a moment later he sat back up with a smile on his face.
"You know what," he said, "I think I'll call you Ebb."
The goblin blinked at him.
"Yeah. You look like an Ebb."
He sat down again and looked at the core. It had returned to a soft, slow pulse.
"You made him because you understand me. You're listening, even if you can't talk back."
Ebb crawled over to Adair and poked at his boot with a stick.
Adair picked up the goblin and set him down beside him. The creature leaned against his leg like a tired dog and yawned.
Adair smiled.
"I don't care if you're an idiot," he said softly. "You're mine."
He touched the goblin's shoulder. "You're like my son, yeah my son Ebb, first of many if I can get a handle on how this core thing works."
Ebb blinked slowly and drooled on Adair's boot a little.
Adair didn't mind.
He reached out and touched the goblin's forehead. "Can you nod?"
Ebb squinted, then nodded in a sharp jerky motion that almost knocked him over.
"Good," Adair said. "Let's try again. I want you to raise your left hand."
Ebb raised both hands, then waved them like a bird.
"Close enough," Adair muttered. "Okay. Sit down."
Ebb sat. Then stood. Then sat again, legs spread in opposite directions like a broken marionette.
Adair watched, his smile tightening.
"We've got some work to do."
But his voice held no frustration. Just wonder. And a strange pride.
He looked up at the core again.
"You heard me. You gave me someone. That means you'll keep responding. That means you'll keep giving me what I desire."
He rubbed his palms together and looked around the stone chamber. It was small, but no longer empty.
He had light. Shelter. A companion.
Adair closed his eyes and breathed out slow.
This place was real. And it was his.
Whatever came next, he would build it with his own hands.
He opened his eyes again and looked at Ebb, who was now trying to eat a small rock.
Adair smiled and leaned back against the wall.
"You're going to be the start of something big," he said.
Ebb burped.
Adair nodded.
"Yeah. Me too."